Garden of Lórien: In Dreams
by Casey Toh
Summary: A girl (an author) longs to go to Middle-earth and stay there. She does, for a brief moment. But it may cause her more unseen pain than what she has endured. My site: www.geocities.com/star_mere/shores.html


A/N: I needed to write this piece. While I'll appreciate reviews and/or critiques, I don't appreciate flames. So if you think you don't like this piece and think it's total rubbish, either hit the _Back_ button or read it and keep quiet. Flames would just be ignored.

For that quote below, I'll rather "illusions" be changed to "dreams," so please switch them in your mind. Thanks.

The Sindarin was formed by me but checked by others, the ones spoken by Glorfindel and the unknown person (guess who). Any mistakes are purely mine.

With thanks to: _Eression_ of _Tolkien__ Online_ and _LadyMeg_ of _ToSpeakElvish__._

**Garden**** of ****Lórien****: In Dreams**

_"Don't part with your illusions, when they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live." –Mark Twain _

The wind that blew from the north was chilly and laced with the scent of salt on it, biting into her skin as she sat upon the breakwater, facing the rippling waves of the sea, a laptop placed on her lap. 

She was typing her thoughts into a folder she had made into a diary, and had written a fair amount:

_I'm starting to doubt all that I believed in: my dreams, my paths, my life. What is the meaning of my life here? Or is there any meaning at all? When I find myself doubting my worthiness (of what, I don't know) and my beliefs._

_ The worlds I've held to be real for so long…I don't see any signs of them. I don't see any sign that they know me as I know them; love me as I do them._

_ The pain hurts too much, the yearning. I've a mind to just jump into the waves and let them either bear me to those worlds beyond the horizon, or to the depths of the sea. Either is better than staying here and thinking of death. _

_ I find myself thinking about Arda more and more, but it fades ever more quickly for me: when one believed in something for so long but sees not even the smallest sign of it, even that belief and strength will wane. But Arda still holds my soul there, my heart, and here, my body is stuck, and I'm left with a hollowness that gnaws at me._

_ Is it even worth it? All the alienation from others…all the hurts. What can I do? One person against the force of nature. Stop? Just give up completely?_

_ Yeah. Yeah, I can do that…_

_ Or I can try. Keep trying to believe._

She raised her head. To the sides of her range of vision, she saw ships and tankers with their red warning lights blinking, and sighed at the pace of technology that was taking her world, even as she used her laptop, and she smiled at the irony of it.

Too fast was the pace with which the world was moving on. She couldn't catch up with it, couldn't catch up with the styles, the thinking, the living of the world, and she was left behind, like many others were.

_But not enough_, she thought. _Not enough._

Ways of thinking were changing; values were changing. Who could she trust? She was so alone. Who can she love?

"_Mellon nîn._" (My friend)

It was a voice coming from behind her, soft, clear and musical, unfamiliar to her ears. Yet…she felt as if she knew it in her.

She turned.

An Elf stood there, tall and golden-haired, grey eyes keen, hair tucked neatly behind delicately pointed ears.

She should have been shocked, go into disbelief, but she just sat there mutely and stared, mouth slightly agape, eyes following and head turning to follow him as he sat down beside her.

She loved the way his hair floated gently in the wind, golden strands that seemed on fire with the red of the sun.

"Glorfindel?" She finally managed to choke out.

"Aye." He gestured at her screen. "You hurt, m'lady. Why?"

She turned her eyes to look at the screen. That document was titled—Garden Of Lórien: In Dreams. Now that she thought about it, the title seemed weird, not fitting to her thoughts. "What are you talking about?"

"You hurt," Glorfindel repeated. "Do you deny that? We can feel your pain, your shadow, your yearning."

"Yeah."

"M'lady?" The Elf spoke again after a long silence, when it was clear she was not going to say more.

She sighed, stirring from the trance she had gone into watching the sea and the sky and the ships. "I don't want to stay here anymore, Glorfindel. I want to go to Middle-earth and stay there. I'll rather fight in a hundred wars against Sauron than face one more day here."

"Unwise words you speak, m'lady," Glorfindel said. "Do not speak of this lightly, for you have never faced the wrath and darkness of Sauron as others have."

"Well, I'll sure like to try," she murmured, though Glorfindel saw that she did not mean it. "It's loads better than having to stay, anyway."

The Elf turned to face her, even that small movement showing his grace, and she felt small and deformed beside him. "What is it that you fear? _Pedo__ enni, mellon nîn. Pedo enni."_ (Speak to me, my friend. Speak to me.)

There was another long silence, then a sharp exhalation. "I dunno. Fear? Maybe I fear nothing, am just bored, and want a change." She grunted. "Or maybe I'm afraid of everything that I'm losing: my goals, my beliefs, my life." She waved her hand before her vaguely. "Look at all these. Technology has progressed too fast." She tapped her laptop. "Even though part of me can't survive without a PC."

Glorfindel thought quietly for a moment. "A part of you is already with us, in Arda, but it is your Doom to be here in flesh. Yet, you will ever be in my thoughts."

"And you think it's enough?" she questioned angrily. "You think all these—words—are enough? That just because _you_ said them they can ease my longing?" Her dark eyes were ablaze. "Lemme tell you, Glorfindel: I lose hope. How can I see hope, when hope doesn't reveal itself to me?"

The Elf shook his head, turning his eyes to gaze out to the distance, and she watched him, watched his fair face that was tinged with sorrow and pain.

But he smiled suddenly and turned to her. "I can aid you."

She narrowed her eyes in disbelief and incomprehension.

But Glorfindel said nothing, only reached out with a slender hand and touched her forehead, and her mind instantly reeled and fogged over, and she fell backwards.

He caught her and laid her down gently, lifting the laptop from her lap and placing it down where it would not slip.

He watched as dusk started to set in slowly. He would stay by her side until just before she came back, warming her body against the chill with the own heat of his body that Elves could share.

There was not enough time, he knew, but mayhap it would be enough for her.

***

She caught the song of birds, and opened her eyes to see that she laid on soft grass under a tree that was a rich green and brown and tipped with the silver of dew upon its leaves. 

She felt detached, as if she was here but not fully here, and as if she was floating. It held the same sensation as when she had had a high fever and was really light-headed.

_And where is Glorfindel?_ She wondered.

As she stood up, she saw a clear, sparkling lake to her side, its water shimmering with the red-orange-silver of twilight, and she gaped at its beauty.

Then, a person walked into view, and she gasped, for he was tall and young, and he was clothed in robes of silver, and his hair was silver and his eyes dark. Wisdom showed on his fair face, and he smiled. "_Mae govannen._" (Well met.) [1]

His voice was a whisper that was as a caress, and she started to speak when he placed a finger on her lips, and shook his head. Then, his fingers moved to her forehead, and she flew.

She flew over plains of grass; over mountains fair and dark and treacherous; under the stars and over the Sun and Moon; over fair towers and cities; over forests and over streams. Then she soared over brown, dead lands that burnt and smoked; over dark towers; into the deepest pits of flames and shadows. She saw people tall and fair and noble; people short, but stout and firm-hearted. She saw the building of beautiful cities that were hidden, and treachery their doom. She saw faces familiar and strange; toiling and noble, dark and terrible.

And she screamed.

Then, she was brought upwards till the Void overtook her, and she was raised more, still. And someone was with her, speaking without words. And she perceived the world, and the Imperishable Flame within it, and she was filled with a warmth that grew so bright she swooned.

And the last thing she heard not with her ears but with her soul was: _Ant lîn. Han garo mae._ (Your gift. Hold it well.)

***

The cold wind awakened her, and she sat up with a gasp, glancing about her wildly. But she was not as cold as she should have been, being filled with a lingering warmth that felt strange but soothed her. The visions of the garden and of everything else filled her with a great sense of awe and wonderment. 

She distinctively recalled talking to Glorfindel, but he didn't seem to be there. _A dream,_ she thought with disappointment and a sharp pain in her heart, raising her eyes to gaze out to sea.

The wind brought to her whispers borne upon it: _Ant lîn. Han garo mae,_ and for a brief few seconds, she saw the silver-haired man before her again.

Then she smiled as that same caress she had felt from his voice brushed across her heart, knowing who he was. She picked up her laptop that was strangely safe beside her—it had not been stolen, even with it being in plain sight of so many people and with her asleep or unconscious—and typed in the rest of her entry, reading it out softly to herself as she did: _"And when you believe enough, it becomes strong enough to pierce the veil between _here_ and _there_, and I found myself for a short moment at home, in the Garden of Irmo Lórien…in dreams."_

~finis

[1] "Mae govannen"—I let Lórien use Sindarin because I just assumed that if he wanted to talk to her, he'd do it in Sindarin, she being a little learnt in it.

If you'll like to take a look at the section of my site concerned with this story, it's at:

--My site: 


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